West With the Night

Born in 1902, Beryl Markham was a woman ahead of her time. A champion racehorse trainer, author, and bush pilot, Markham was the first female pilot in Kenya and flew solo across the Atlantic during the early years of the aviation age. She is also a fine author, as evidenced by this memoir, in which she writes what must be one of my all-time favorite lines. Writing of an encounter with low-level Italian bureaucrats in the years immediately preceding World War II, Markham writes that there is "no hell like uncertainty, and no greater menace to society than an Italian with three liras worth of authority." I'll have to remember that the next time I'm bemoaning a peon on a power trip.

West with the Night offers not only a glimpse into Markham's own remarkable life (if Gertrude Bell was the Desert Queen, perhaps Markham is the queen of the savanna), but also into British colonialism. Unlike White Mischief, which focuses almost entirely on the British experience in Kenya, West with the Night includes extensive memories of Markham living the "authentic" Kenyan experience, including being "moderately eaten by [a] large lion." Although I was most interested in Beryl the bush pilot, Beryl the bush hunter is also a fascinating study, particularly as this phase of life preceded the former by many years - making Markham but a girl when she would join native tribesman on boar hunts!

Markham may have been ahead of her time in some respects, but in her regard for native populations, she was very much a woman of her time and place. The early pages, in particular, reek of colonialism; Markham's description of the various Kenyan people are jarring, and the depth of British imperialism is something to behold. To say it is a long way from West with the Night to The Last Resort is to rather understate things.